The Finn never really got close enough to mount an attack and waited for the young Englishman to make a mistake - which never came.  Into third came Nick Heidfeld who spent the latter part of the race fending off the attacks of Fernando Alonso. After a gritty drive Heikki Kovalainen scored the point for eighth place for the ING Renault F1 Team.

There was palpable tension on the grid  before the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Pole setter Alonso had been demoted 5 places after holding up his team-mate yesterday. When the lights went out Raikkonen made a Lightning get-away to slot in behind Hamilton on the run down to the first corner. All the cars completed the first lap without incident and as they flashed past the pits, the order was McLaren, Ferrari, BMW-Sauber. Then came Rosberg in his Williams-Toyota and Ralf Schumacher (Toyota). Alonso had lost 2 places and was eighth behind Webber’s Red Bull and Kubica’s BMW. 

Fernando then put his head down and within a couple of laps he had got past both the Red Bull and the BMW to take sixth.  Up front Hamilton had already opened up a 3.3s lead over Raikkonen.
On lap 6, Yamamoto slid off into the tyre barriers ending his race. Five laps later Fisichella went wide and was passed by Trulli’s Toyota. The Italian came round in twelfth place.

As expected there were some drivers on a 3-stop strategy and the first of these to come in was Heidfeld on lap 17 emulated by Schumacher and Rosberg. One lap later it was Alonso’s turn to refuel, and on lap 19 the leader did the same like Raikkonen, Kubica and Fisichella. The order was: Hamilton, Raikkonen, (+2s), Heidfeld (+14.3s), Kovalainen (+19.2s) and Rosberg (22.3s).

On lap 25, the gap between Hamilton and Raikkonen shrank to 1.5s. Two laps later Heikki came in for his first stop and put on the soft compound again. The gap between the leaders was now down to 0.7s. On lap 32, Rosberg in fourth place came in for his second refuelling stop and at this moment the first four were: Hamilton, Raikkonen, Heidfeld and Kubica.

Lap 41 saw Heidfeld in for the second time and he rejoined in fourth. This was also the moment that Fisichella chose for his second stop. On his way out the Italian tagged Anthony Davidson’s Super Aguri which went off. Next time round in came Kubica and the Pole went in sixth place behind Alonso.

Lap 45 saw Raikkonen in for the second time and he put on soft tyres with 25 laps left in the race. Ralf Schumacher stopped 2 laps later, and on lap 49 Kovalainen came in for his second and last stop followed by Hamilton a lap later. Alonso stopped on lap 50, and some quick work by the McLaren team sent him out ahead of Schumacher with whom he had been battling for a good part of the race.

With 20 laps to go the order was: Hamilton, Raikkonen, Heidfeld; Kubica, Rosberg, Alonso, Schumacher and Webber. The 2 Renaults were in tenth (Kovalainen) and thirteenth (Fisichella) places.

Lap 54 saw Heidfeld refuelling for the third time and put on the soft compound. Nico Rosberg did the same a lap later emulated by Kubica on lap 56. Heidfeld held on to third while Alonso took advantage of BMW’s strategy to overtake the Pole.

Up front Raikkonen was making an all-out attempt to get past Hamilton as the Ferrari seemed a tad quicker on the soft rubber. On lap 58, the gap was down to 0.5s but the Finn was unable to find a way through. Heikki took advantage of Webber’s third stop to go into eighth place. Towards the end of the race Alonso was all over Heildfeld for the final position on the podium but the little German did not crack.

So after 70 laps Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag to score his third win of the season and increase his lead over Alonso to 7 points in the drivers' championship. Raikkonen’s second place put him into third position in the title chase by one point from Massa. Heikki added another point to his total. He is now only one behind Fisichella (17-16) who came home in twelfth place.